Can anyone more inteligent than me (all of you) put into laymans terms the implications of the mortgage interest rate change and when it comes into force, I'm guessing not until at least the next financial new year?

The change to Wear & Tear starts in April 2016 & will affect some more than others, for instance the Wear & Tear allowance is very valuable to me, probably my best tax break, yet Lisa doesn't use it at all preferring the standard replacement basis that is being forced upon us. All in all I don't see this change making a massive difference - for instance I am about to start a large scale program of replacement of carpets which under the old system would have been covered by my allowance. I will now put this back a year and claim the money via invoices. From now on I will probably replace furniture far more often with cheaper lower quality furniture. Not good for the environment, but good business for me.

The Mortgage Interest change takes place in April 2017, and will only affect people paying higher tax rates. I await the details with interest because although the change sounds simple in theory, in practice what will happen about loans which aren't mortgages, or mortgages to companies? Those questions open all sorts of possibilities for avoiding the loss of the allowance, and I don't see how HMRC hope to have different sorts of rules for different sorts of business finance. Similarly to the W&T allowance I don't see this making a big difference for the moment because interest rates are so low. Also if interest rates rise so much that the tax change becomes significant there may be profitable LL businesses going bust because of the tax they have to pay.

What does worry me is that although all the press are only talking about Mortgage Interest my reading of the Government website is that it is ALL expenses - i.e. maintenance - that is affected. What puzzles me is that the announcement has taken people by surprise. Conservative Party policy is to favour home ownership, and privatise social housing. This is only putting into practice their long help political beliefs.

To make the tax system fairer, the government will restrict the amount of Income Tax relief landlords can get on residential property finance costs (such as mortgage interest) to the basic rate of tax. This will ensure that landlords with higher incomes no longer receive the most generous tax treatment. To give landlords time to adjust the government will introduce this change gradually from April 2017 over 4 years.